Motorola Moto E hands-on

Keeping a lower profile nowadays, Motorola seems more intent than ever to tackle the entry-level market. No, they’re not trying to win consumers with free on-contract phones, but rather, they’ve gone the route of producing off-contract phones that are sporting hard-to-beat prices. Already, we’ve seen it during the holidays with the Motorola Moto G, which proved to be an inviting venture internationally. In following up to that success, Motorola is unleashing its latest cost-cutting Android powered smartphone in the Moto E. Without diving into all of the specs right now, let is just point out that this small bundle of joy is going to be rocking an amazing $129.99 cost!

Design

One quick peek at the Moto E, we’re instantly reminded about the Moto G, seeing that it shares the same design language as its successful sibling. In the greater scheme of things, there’s nothing really worth gloating about with the Moto E’s design – more so when it grazes the humble side of things. Bearing in mind the cost of the phone, we really can’t complain too much about the rehashed design of the phone, but at least it offers some personalization in the form of the colorful selection of interchangeable shells that Moto will sell alongside the device.



Overall, the design is uniform and pretty comfortable to hold in the hand due to the subtle curved rear casing. More importantly, though, its construction is pretty decent considering its low cost. Oh yeah, it also features a water-resistant splash guard to keep the phone from conking out if it’s used in the rain. However, don’t think for a moment that it’ll survive complete submersion.

The Moto E looks exactly like the Moto G before it.

Display

Far from sporting the dazzling visuals seen with today’s crop of contemporary high-end smartphones, the Moto E favors having a more hand-friendly sized 4.3-inch 540 x 960 (qHD) IPS display with Gorilla Glass 3 on top of it. Yes, it’s actually a lower resolution display than the 720p screen found on the Moto G, but nevertheless, its pixel density count of 256 ppi is enough to make surfing the web tolerable.



However, our eyes can clearly tell that the display distorts when tilted slightly. From the front, colors have a nice punchy tone to them, but from the sides, it washes out tremendously. Again, the intent here is to provide a usable display that keeps the phone’s cost low – and it manages to do just that.

Interface

Out of the box, the Moto E features a pretty stock Android 4.4.2 KitKat experience. From our cursory look, we can’t find any sort of customization from Motorola’s end, so hardcore Android fans will be pleased by that gesture. Naturally, the UI is pretty clean, intuitive, and straightforward, giving first time users an easy time taking hold of the experience.



With the phone’s introduction, we find two new features that we haven’t otherwise experienced on past Motorola Android smartphones. First, there’s Motorola Migrate, which is none other than a utility to help new owners to easily transfer content from their old device to the Moto E. Secondly, there’s the Motorola Assist feature that helps prevent us from being interrupted during certain scenarios – like when you’re at an important meeting. As a whole, there isn’t anything profoundly new that would make us drool with glee, but hey, at least it’s a stock experience to begin with.

Processor and memory